Grilled Soy Honey Chicken wings

My all time fav quick meal fix!
The only requirement is prepare at least 3hrs early to marinate for max flavor.

Ingredients

1. 10-12 chicken wings
2. 4 tbsp of soy sauce
3. 4 tbsp of honey
4. 2 tbsp of sake
5. 1 clove of crushed minced garlic
6. salt
7. black pepper.
8. 1 tsp fine chilli powder (or more if u like spicier)

Cooking steps

1. Rinsed chicken wings. Pat dry and poke chicken wing (esp the drumlette) randomly with fork to allow seasoning to get to the flesh. Place into prep tray or bowl

2. Season with pinch of salt (est 1.5tsp) and black pepper .

3. Add soy sauce, galic & sake Mix well.

4. Add honey. Mix well.

5. Pour chicken wings and mixed honey sauce into zip lock bag and mix well to all chicken wings for max marination.

6. keep in fridge (lay flat so that chicken wings are not stacked on top of each other) to marinate for at least 2-3 hours (for max flavor)

7. Prepare oven and set at about 200degree grill.

8. Arrange chicken wings flat on a tray together with the sauce. Sprinkle some of the chilli powder on the wings. with the (inner) side facing up.

9. Place in oven grill for 10mins. In between, check and use a brush to coat chicken wings with the marinate sauce once.

10. After about 10mins, flip the chicken wings over and again brush the wings with the sauce.
Grill for another 10mins or till chicken begin to brown (not burnt!)

Dinner is served:)

Chicken soup Seafood/Minced porrk/ Abalone porridge

Making something light and simple today. Chicken soup porridge with minced pork and abalone. You can play around with the ingredients to include other seafood like prawns if you like as in the 2nd photo.

Abalone porridge with Minced pork

Seafood porridge with minced pork and carrots & oyster mushrooms

The key to this is having a nice chicken broth to make the meal tasty, without the use of salt and sugar.

You will need to prepare the chicken stock before hand.

Chicken stock preparation

Ingredients for chicken stock

- 2.5 litre of water
- 3 fillet of chicken breast.
- 1 inch of smash ginger, without skin
- 1/2 stalk of spring onion, the lower white half.

Chicken stock cooking steps

1. Boil 2.5 litre of water. Add the smash ginger and spring onion. Bring to boil with lid cover
2. Add the chicken breast and turn the flame down to medium and close lid to boil.
3. After 30mins, the soup should taste of chicken stock, reduce flame and boil for another 45mins to hour at small flame. Once the soup taste naturally sweet, you are done.

Ingredients to make the porridge

- to serve 2 pax, 1 cup of jasmine white rice.
- minced pork, portion for 2
- 1 red carrot.
- abalone, portion for 2
- prawns (optional)
- 1 rinsed spring onion, chopped.
- some sliced ginger

Abalone minced pork cooking steps (after chicken stock is ready)

1. Rinse rice until water is clear. Add to cooking pot.

2. Add enough water to cover the rice by over 3 inch. (doesnt matter if its more since I will be throwing the excess away. However, it cannot be too little)

3. Cook the rice over medium flame and stir occasionally to prevent it sticking to the pot base.

4. Throw away any excess water when rice is almost ready and add chicken soup to cover rice into the rice pot. Continue to simmer.

4. Meanwhile in separate pot, stir fry sliced ginger and garlic with sesame oil till slightly brown. Add minced pork, chopped abalone sides, chopped carrots (and whatever ingredients you like to add to your soup porridge) and stir. (For those who like heavier flavor, u may add salt, soy sauce and pepper) Add a dash of sesame oil for fragrance.

5. When ingredients are cooked, add to the porridge simmering in chicken soup stock.

6. Only Add fresh prawns now to the mix if you like to have some.

7. When prawns are cook, remove form flame and scoop into bowl. If you prefer it to be more soupy, add more soup into the porridge.

You are done. You may add dash of pepper and fish sauce for taste if you like but its optional.

Honeyed Soya sauce with Apple Cider Vinegar Chicken Thighs

Took me 3 separate attempts to perfect this dish to the balanced flavor I like. This is a modified version from the Filippino's version since I like my meat to be more balanced with a tinge of sweetness.

Servings: 2 pax

Time to cook: 25-30 mins

Ingredients:

- 4 chicken thighs.
- 1/8 cup of Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/8 cup of Mirin
- 1/4 cup of (Gluten free) Soya Sauce
- 5-6 tsp of honey on standby.
- 1/2 cup of water
- 3-4 sliced large cloves of garlic

Cooking Steps:

1. Mix water, soya sauce, mirin, sliced garlic and Apple Cider Vinegar into a sauce pot. Bring to boil.

2. (Optional): If you have a griller, turn up the griller to about 250 degree C on fan forced.

3. Add chicken thighs into the boiling sauce with skin side down. Lower the heat to medium or medium low to simmering heat. Cover lid for 10mins

4. Flip the chicken (only once) and leave to cook in simmering sauce for another 10mins. You dont have to cover the lid.

5. Remove chicken from the sauce pot and add 2-3tsp of honey to the sauce to sweeten. Bring sauce to boil and WATCH over the sauce, careful not to burn it.

6. When the sauce starts to thicken, taste. If it is sweet enough, turn off flame. If not, you can add another teaspoon of honey.

7. Meanwhile, coat lightly your chicken both sides with some honey and put it into the pre heated oven griller. This helps to "glue" the honey to caramelise it onto the chicken. If you dont have a griller, you can skip this step. Instead, if you do not have a griller, simply place the coated honey chicken back into the sauce pot (meat side down) and leave it for 5mins.

8. Grill the chicken for about 3-5mins on skin side. When you see the nice glaze on the skin (like in photo above), you know its ready.

9. Place meat on dish, pour sauce over the chicken and serve.

Tip 1: If you need to cook for more people, you just need to double the portion of sauce and chicken.

Tip 2: If you dont have mirin, it's fine, just change apple cider to 1/4 instead of 1/8.

Chinese Style Oyster Soy sauce Chicken with Carrots and Mushrooms

There are variations to this but I decided to post the one with the updated version with the condensed rich sauce which my man loves. When he polishes off the chicken, he would keep the sauce and dip it with bread: ) I added carrots coz I like them, and also wolfberries to sweeten the sauce more so that I can use less sugar.

Oyster Drumsticks with Chinese Mushrooms and carrots

I didnt follow the traditional recipe and modify it instead, with less dark soy sauce (hence the lighter shade of brown). Also, I dont like to add too much sodium or refined sugar if I can help it.
So u can adjust the oyster to 2TBsp if you want more flavour and rich sauce.

Ingredients

- pack of chilled dozen wings/or drumlettes / or 4 drumsticks
- 2 inch ginger sliced into thin slices (for frying)
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 1 large smashed garlic clove with skin on (for flavoring oil)
- 1 carrot (optional), cut into 1 inch chucks
- 1 inch of grated ginger
- 6 presoaked Chinese Mushrooms or Shitake Mushrooms or Button mushrooms
- half brown or red onion, cut into chucks (you dont want them too small).
- Rinsed Wolfberries (optional, amount up to you but a small handful. Soak rinsed berries with 2 TBSP of water.)
- 1 normal size mug of water
- 2 stalks of rinsed spring onion

Sauces

- 1.5Tb Light soy sauce
- 1Tb Oyster sauce
- 1 tsp of sugar
- Dash of white or grated black pepper
- 1.5Tbsp  Chinese wine or Shaoxing Wine
- 1tsp of sesame oil
- 2Tbsp of cooking oil. 


Cooking Steps

1. Marinate chicken wings/ drumlets/ drumsticks with all the sauces above, except the sesame oil. 

2. Add the grated ginger and minced garlic and mix well.

3. Leave the marinate to work for at least 20mins.

4. Heat pan with 1 TBSP of cooking oil. Add onion chucks, sliced ginger. Stir fry till onion is starts to soften.

5. Add Chinese Mushrooms and wolfberries & the water.

6. Add 1tsp if Sesame Oil after about 5mins. Stiry fry for another 2mins.

7. Remove from pan all cooked ingredients into a bowl. (Dont prolong or sesame taste will b diluted to nothing. We want to retain a hint)

8. In a clean frying pan, add the remaining 1TBsp cooking oil.

9. When oil is hot, add the clove of smashed garlic to the oil and when it browns, remove.

10. Add sliced ginger and cook till starting to turn light brown. Add 2 half stalks of spring onion (the white part) add the drumsticks, but NOT the marinate sauce. If the chicken starts to stick, u may add a little more olive cooking oil.

11. After about 3mins of turning the chicken drumstick around and nicely brown the skin, add the marinate sauce and add 1 mug of water to dilute. If the sauce is still too salty, you may add more water till it reaches the saltiness level you like. 

12. Add the chopped carrots, this will help sweeten the sauce so dont add any sugar before this.

13. Close the lid of the pot/ wok and at medium flame, give it 10mins. This steam cooking will cook more evenly and soften your carrots nicely.

14. Usually large drumsticks are easy to tell if they are cook when you stop seeing the pink juices seeping out at the top. However, to test if drumstick is cook, poke a fork through. If you still see a lot of red blood juice running out, that means its not ready, stick it with lid close for another 2mins. Retest. Once u see clear juice, its cooked. If u still see a slight pink after alot of clear juices, its fine. the meat will continue to cook within for another few mins on its own. 

15. The sauce should be nice and rich now. If u like it more watery you can add water here and salt/sugar to adjust taste. Usually I dont have to.

16. Throw back the cooked mushroom and onions in.

17. Give it a good toss to combined the mixture.

18. Garnish with chopped spring onion (the green part) if you like.

Chinese Style Chicken Drumstick Soup, with Carrots Chinese Mushrooms and wolfberries

I normally make chicken soup with a whole Australian free range chicken but today, I finetuned the recipe to make soup only with chicken drumstick and it turned out surprisingly delicious.

Chicken Drumstick Soup with carrots, chinese mushrooms & wolfberries.

Over the years, I have only been cooking for 2 pax and found it so easy, so I honestly fail to understand the "excuses" that "its so hard to cook for 2 pax so I dont cook." theory. Think of all the benefits of cooking your own meals. No salt. No sugar. Only wholesome goodness...Not to mention all the minor tweaks to customise it to your taste. To me, its hands down win :)

So here's my easy to make chicken soup.

Portion: 2 pax.
Time to prep & cook: 1.5hrs

Ingredients
- 4 medium size drumsticks.
- 5 medium size presoaked Chinese Mushrooms
- 2 tbsp of rinsed wolf berries.
- 8 deseeded red dates.
- 5 slices of rinsed Chinese Yam. (optional)
- A small handful of lily bulbs in a tea pouch (optional)
- 1 large Australian fresh carrot, or 2 mid size.
- 2 dried presoaked small scallops. (normally I would presoak for 5-10mins prior so that its not that strong)
- 2 inch of smashed ginger without skin.

Cooking steps

1. Fill soup pot with 2 L of water. Bring to Boil.

2. Throw in sliced mushrooms, chinese yam, dried scallops, red dates, ginger into pot and bring to boil with medium heat for 20mins with lid close.

3. In a separate pot, boil water and cook drumstick for about 5 mins. Throw away the water.

4. Add the drumsticks into the soup pot to cook with other ingredients. Turn flame down to small.

5. Close lid and leave to simmer for an hour.

6. Add wolfberries, close lid, cook for another 15mins.

Done. Served with rice.

Tip: You can replace carrots with daikon (white radish).
1. However, I recently learnt that you should not mix daikon with red carrot as the Vit C in radish is destroyed by carrots. You should cook them separately.

2. Radish is considered cooling property vege, so not suitable for all people.. More importantly, one should NOT consume radish while taking medication esp antibiotics as it is said to neutralise the effects of the medication.

Vietnamese style Chicken Pho

I thought I would challenge myself into making something new for dinner tonight. So for a change but not straying too far off, I opted to try making Vietnamese Chicken Pho tonite!

I searched around abit for a more authentic recipe rather than those half fusion ones like those featured in Masterchef Australia. I have never heard of celery and thyme in any Asian broth so I cut all those stuff out. Interestingly, I chanced upon a "true-blue" recipe written by a Vietnamese targeted for her American audience.

Recipe: read here or below "copied" from original site for convenience. No copy right infringement intended.

I must say I am pretty proud of myself. Pulled it off nicely for my first attempt! Another recipe patted down good. It took way much longer than I expected for some unknown reason, but the soup was definitely good:) Amazing what simple ingredients pulled together make such a difference. I used all the ingredients in the link above except Cloves which I omitted because i forgotten about it in my shopping list.

What I did was to look through what ingredients she used and used the portions in estimate since I was too lazy to try to convert the weight measurement. Instinct took over for most part which may explain the longer than usual process.

My Chicken Pho Attempt

Carmelised Onion with Pan fried Chicken Cutlet (De Boned Chicken Thighs)

Tried a new western recipe - Caramalised Chicken Thigh Cutlets. Takes about 20mins to prepare in advance and another 20mins to cook.

Ingredients

- 2 teaspoons veg oil

- 4 chicken thigh cutlets skin on (800g) WITHOUT bone.

- 1 medium red onion, sliced thinly

- 3 garlic cloves, sliced thinly

- 1/4cup (55g) brown sugar (I usually put less than this. it's up to individual preference)

- 1Tablespoon dark soy sauce

- 1 Tablespoon fish sauce

- 1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander

Cooking steps

1. Preheat Oven to 200/180 degree cel. fan forced

2. Heat oil in frying pan, pan fry chicken till brown on both sides. Then place chicken in baking tray to bake (uncovered) for another 2-5min till cook through.

3. At the same time, heat clean pan. Reuse a small amount of the oil (previously used to pan fried chicken) and cook onion, garlic stirring until onion softens.

4. Add the sugar and sauces. (I personally will add a little water just to dilute it alittle if you are not using a non stick pan) Stir and cook for another 3 mins or so ( or until you visually see that onion has soften to the level that you like. Some like it more crunchy while like it really soft)

5. Return chicken to pan with coriander. Turn chicken to coat in sauce mixture.

Serve.

Personal Note: (What the recipe doesnt tell you)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- You can choose not to panfried the chicken till its brown. I just pan fry for about 5-10mins depending on how large the pieces are.

- I just panfried without oil in a non stick pan till the chicken fat is suitably melted before I chuck it into the oven. I personally would prefer Light olive oil instead of peanut oil.

- Always, always cook with the skin side first. The skin acts as an insulator preventing your meat from being cooked too quickly.

- Neither do I bake till the chicken is fully cook as instructed by recipe. Rather I had it baked till about almost cooked (i think 5 mins is a good gauge). The reason is that the chicken still need to undergo more heat cooking when mixing with the sauces. This way, the cutlet will not be tough from being overcooked. At least if its under cook (baked) , easy breezy, just stick it on the pan with sauce longer:P

- Or you can choose not to bake and just pan fry till the meat is cook.